My good friend, LERE Oyewunmi, like a great orator which he is, went out of decorum and abused the protocols of speech making in his Ikire land recently. Like a man who’s intoxicated with the love of a damsel, he lost his fluency and discretion, and ran riots with words.
His words rolled out faster than his brain had imagined such that, they have now turned into swords threatening to consume him. Indeed, what orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
Vote buying is the commercial process where by a candidate or a political party or it’s agent engaged in purchasing voters and votes at specific costs. Vote buying and other forms of electoral inducements are common phenomenon in Nigerian politics. This is so because the average voter is not only poor but also uneducated and unable to resist the alluring offers of uncontrolled electoral gratifications which may be in cash or kind or both.
Vote Buying is inherently a derivation of election fraud. It is the root cause of bad governance and a facilitator of the imposition of incorrect and incompetent group of individuals to fill positions in governance.
The menace of vote buying in Nigeria electoral system cannot be overemphasized. The ripple effects of voter buying which stems from bad governance includes insecurity of lives and properties, wide spread corruption as well as general lack of accountability by the ruling those elected or appointed into positions. The menace breeds incompetent leadership in Nigeria. Registering more than once and being in unlawful possession of a voter’s card, selling or buying of voters card are major and specific offences in our electoral law. The offence also attracts a fine not exceeding N100,000 or imprisonment for one year or both.(Section 117 E.A 2010).
Oyewunmi as a law maker should know this and I am sure he knows this law exists. Osun State is in a monumental mess today as a result of the process by which majority of those in offices today got there. If it’s not power attained through the barrel of guns, it’s power obtained through fraudulent monetary inducements. For example, since Ede land politics fell into the hands of the Adeleke family, especially as witnessed in 1992 when Isiaka Adeleke was contesting in the Social Democratic Party, and in the most recent time of Demola, also known as Jackson or Ifeanyichukwu Adeleke, there has never been real elections in Ede. The outcome of any party primary in which any of the Adelekes is participating cannot be guaranteed to be free and fair. In the heat of elections campaigns when other candidates were promising citizens with robust manifestos, Demola was only boasting in public that he had pound sterling, euros, dollars and even Yemen to spend….in his word, ” to ba je t’owo ni, mo ti gb’owo de. Dollar, Euro, Pounds……”, and indeed, he spent money.
Today, the effects are telling in the negative order in the state. We are witnessing the most incompetent and irresponsible administration since 1992 in Osun State.
My friend, LERE Oyewunmi may not be prosecuted for this lousy and wayward confession, but the Truth has been confirmed and registered by responsible citizens. The people who assumed office through the killing of innocent people, those whose hands are soaked in the bloods of fellow brothers and sisters at Atakumosa East, Iree, Ikire, Ila Orangun, Ejigbo, Ile Ife, Ilesa East and so on are now revealing the additional facts.
Ki Olorun so wa ju 2026 , when we shall meet again.
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